A miracle of God is recorded for us in the Bible: God held back the overflowing Jordan river so that the people could cross on dry ground. This was pretty incredible given that it was the harvest season and the river was overflowing its banks. Once all the people passed through this special "way" that God had made, He instructed them to set up a stone memorial where they would camp that night. (Which was on the other side of the river--only possible because of God's hand in their lives!) He gave them particular instructions about how to build it and then told them,
"In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' 7tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever." (Joshua 4:6&7)
This past weekend we were able to set up our own memorial to testify to the hand of God in our lives. Due to some ridiculously extreme circumstances that I will spare my audience, our son's grave had not yet been marked. I can see now, looking back, that this was the best way. In most situations following a death, the funeral home will order and set the memorial stone for your loved one and you go visit it when it is complete. Due to these bizarre happenings, this was not how it worked for us. Nearly 3 years later, we found ourselves on a gorgeous fall day setting our beloved Oskar's memorial stone. We had tried multiple times in the past to do this task, each time with plenty of others to help us do the job. This time however, it was just us--alone. The five of us who endured this tragedy--plus the newest little member asleep in the van. This became incredibly significant as we found ourselves in the middle of a moment. The importance of this moment became more and more obvious as we watched our children take part in what had to be done. The cleaning off of the footer. The lifting of the base and memorial stone from the van's trunk. The placement of the lead spacers. The rolling of the sealant between tiny fingers. We worked together at the task and we savored one another's presence. Our beloved family member was buried here, and we were working to mark it. As we lifted, sealed and straightened our child's stone, we treasured the moment in our heart.
I felt moved by God to tell my children about the above example of God having Joshua set up a memorial stone to tell others about what He had done for them. "This is the same. We have been allowed this terrible tragedy in our lives. We don't understand it. We hurt. We miss Oskar. But we know that it is good. God is good and He has a plan. Soon enough, we will be done with this earthly life and we will be with Oskar forever and all our pain will be no more.
But for now, we set up this stone to say, "look what God did in our lives--He is good."
When the task was complete, we stood as a family joined hand in hand and once again prayed at Oskar's grave site. We acknowledge our pain, but trust God to heal us...and He has, and we know He will continue to heal. Our children each had their own responses to this visit: one with quiet tears rolling down cheeks, another walking from grave to grave finding interesting facts, and yet another trying to understand this brother he had that he never knew. I scratched my wedding rings from the weight of the stones, but Brian's response reflected my own: what a better reason!
The verse on the front of his stone echoes the words the Lord whispered to my heart in the deepest moment I have ever experienced: driving away from the hospital where I had given birth--empty armed. Never have I felt such sadness, such despair. And it was in that moment that God spoke those words to my heart as plain as day: JOY COMES IN THE MORNING. I found it later that day in the Psalms.
The back shares a prayer of perspective with all those who come to grieve at the cemetery. I found this quoted in A Mother's Grief Observed and was taken from a missionary's funeral. As I would visit his grave in the weeks and months following his shocking death, I realized that what people inscribe on these stones is powerful. Some are incredibly stupid and others hold out the hope of Truth like a cup of water in a desert. I wanted Oskar's stone to be a beacon of hope in a land of the grieving.
We accept this pain that God has entrusted into our lives as a gift from Him. We no more like it than anyone else, but we have seen such tremendous GOOD come from it. The very existence of Silver Sand Images stems from the tragedy of our son. And we continue to share about the beauty of life and the freedom we know through the love of Christ Himself. Amen and amen.
She was a delight to work with and is mastering the art of sitting up! Look at her balance on this old tub!
Mommy brought along some fresh flowers and boy did she have fun with them!
I love this last image...you sample just a tiny fraction of the incredible bond these two share!
